The Cactus Creek Challenge (30 page)

Rand Franks wisely skirted around the depot and approached from the far end of the platform just as the departing whistle sounded. Cassie handed him his ticket.

“Good-bye, and thank you for all your help. We’ll be praying for your family.”

He clasped her hand, worry bright in his eyes. “Thank you. I’ll wire when I arrive. Take every precaution with the gold. I’d stay if I could.”

“I know. We’ll be fine.” She said this with more confidence than she felt. He released her hand, swung aboard the stage as it began to pull out, and took with him a great deal of the assurance with which she’d been protecting herself.

Jenny leaned on the corral fence, resting her chin on her crossed arms. Misery stood on the far side of the enclosure, swishing his tail and eyeing her. They’d declared an uneasy truce since the biting incident, mostly because she pitch-forked hay over the fence and slid a fresh bucket of water under the bottom rail of the corral twice a day and left him mostly to his own devices.

And felt a failure as a result.

For some reason that horse had become a symbol of all she had not done right in her marriage, how she’d let someone dominate and bully her, make her walk in fear every day, refused to even try to change things after a while.

Today her behavior changed.

She knew her decision had much to do with the inner turmoil currently writhing in her middle, her constant companion since hearing of Amanda’s near miss with a rattlesnake yesterday. The child had told the story with excitement and glee, relating how Ben had praised her bravery, and she hadn’t understood why her mother had hugged her repeatedly last evening, or why Jenny had wanted to sit beside her bed as she fell asleep.

Misery stomped his hoof and blasted a whinny, shaking his mane and baring his teeth. All along the edges of the corral, he’d worn a groove in the dirt. A part of her felt sorry for the big fellow, fenced in for the first time in his life, though he ate better and was safer here than running wild.

Jenny fished into her skirt pocket for the selection of edibles she’d brought. An apple, some sugar in a little twist of paper, a sourdough biscuit, and half a stick of peppermint candy. When she’d asked Ben what kind of treats a horse might like, he’d rattled off half a dozen ideas.

She’d try the apple first. Entering the barn, she dipped a scoop into the feed bin and dumped the contents into a metal bucket. Approaching his stall, she let the handle clank against the bucket’s side and rattled the grain. As she’d hoped, the stallion stuck his head through the door into his stall, nostrils quivering, eyes bright.

“Hey, big fellow. Are you hungry?” Speaking with much more ease than she felt, she reminded herself that horses had the ability to sense fear.

Much like her husband had.

Setting the bucket on the ground at her feet, she withdrew a pocketknife and cut the apple in half so he could smell the fragrant juice. “If you come here and be nice, you can have some of this.”

His big feet rustled in the straw, and he blew through his nose, obviously unhappy that she hadn’t just dumped the food and backed off as always.

She remained still, half the apple on her palm, stretched over the half door. He glared at her, his nostrils wide as he inhaled.

Impasse. Her arm began to tremble.

Her mind drifted to a bit of Amanda’s prattle. Something about Carl singing to horses to calm them.

Though she always suspected she couldn’t carry a tune in a crate with a lid on it, she cleared her throat and began to sing—a hymn, since those were the only songs to which she knew all the words.

Misery stopped pawing the dirt. Slowly his ears went from being pinned back against his head to forward and upright.

Holding completely still, she waited, humming under her breath as the giant took a hesitant step forward, then another. When he was just a foot away, he stopped, snorting and bobbing his head. An inch, two, and his breath blew hot on her hand. Forcing herself not to remember the viper-like quickness he’d displayed when he’d bitten her arm, she remained still. So softly she wondered if he could even hear it, she sang:

With a whoosh, the apple disappeared, and Misery backed away. She smothered a smile and placed the second half of the apple on top of the gate while finishing the hymn.

Backing away from the door, she turned to pick up the bucket at her feet.

“Mama, Mama, Mama, look what I got.” Amanda’s little button-up boots pounded the hard-packed dirt of the barn floor.

“What is it?” Jenny grinned at her daughter’s disheveled hair and glowing skin. It was as if, over the past few weeks—since this Challenge began, in fact—that a chrysalis had broken from around Amanda and a butterfly had emerged, beautiful and ready to fly. Was it Ben’s rather unorthodox lessons, or Carl’s patient gentleness, or the pony and foal, or was it just the natural consequence of finally being free of her father’s tyranny? Perhaps all of it had played a part in the changes in her little girl.

“Mr. Wilder made it for me.” She held up a small buckskin pouch. “And listen.” She shook it, and the wicked buzz of a rattlesnake sounded.

All around them, horses stirred, and Misery trumpeted. Jenny’s hand came down on the rattle, stilling it. A cold shiver went up her spine at this reminder of how close Amanda had come to real harm. But the little girl was so pleased, had told her mama several times how brave she had been, that Jenny couldn’t let her revulsion show.

“That’s great. But we can’t rattle it in here because it upsets the horses. Horses don’t like rattlesnakes, and they don’t know that it’s just the tail you have there and not the whole snake.”

“I don’t want to scare them.” She tucked her treasure into her pinafore pocket. “I showed it to Mr. Carl.”

“You stopped there first?”

She nodded. “To drop off my schoolbooks. I don’t know why I have to carry them to school every day. We don’t use them at all. Can I go visit Copper? Are they outside?”

“Yes, they’re in the corral in the back. Why don’t you take them an armful of hay?” She dug in her pocket. “And you can give Copper this.” She handed her the broken peppermint stick. “Don’t eat it yourself. It’s been on the floor and in my pocket, and it’s nasty.”

As she dropped the candy into Amanda’s hand, Misery thrust his nose over the stall door and whinnied. Jenny jumped and screamed, throwing herself to the side away from the large black muzzle.

The stallion snorted and bared his teeth before turning and racing out of his stall into his pen. Jenny rubbed her elbow where she’d barked it on a stall divider, trying to calm her racing heart.

“That animal is going to be the death of me. I think I just undid all the progress we made today.”

Amanda curled the end of her braid around her finger and tilted her head. “I think he’s ornery because he knows you’re scared of him. Mr. Carl says animals can tell if you’re scared. Then they get naughty or they get scared, too. Misery might get both.”

Jenny had been treated to a healthy dose of “Mr. Carl says” over the past few days. As if it wasn’t enough that the man invaded her own thoughts more than was comfortable, Amanda seemed to bring him up with every other breath.

Without waiting for a response to her secondhand wisdom, her daughter scampered toward the corral.

Jenny tugged on her gloves and studied her next task. Several burlap sacks of corn had been stowed in the loft at some point, and now mice had gnawed through the bags and gotten at the corn. She’d managed to shovel what remained into two new sacks, but it needed to be brought down and put into one of the grain bins.

Hiking her skirt, she mounted the ladder to the loft. Once there, she wrapped her arm around a support pillar and leaned way too far out to grab the rope that hung from the pulley system fastened to the peak far above. She dragged the rope to the bags and wrapped it around them, tying a secure knot.

“There.” She nudged the bags with her toe. “Now all I have to do is lower you down to the floor.”

Navigating the ladder once more, wishing she could do the scandalous thing and wear pants in the barn instead of tripping over her skirts all the time, she got herself to the ground. The rope was thick and hard for her to handle, probably the perfect girth for Carl’s immense paws, but unwieldy for Jenny.

She reached high and tugged.

And nothing happened. The bags didn’t budge.

Frowning, she gripped the rope harder, leaning back.

The bags moved a little closer to the edge of the loft but didn’t lift. Jenny let go of the rope and studied her options. What she needed was a little leverage. An idea sparked, and she wrapped the rope around her waist and tied a knot. She slid the loop down until it was below her hips. Bracing her foot against one of the support beams, she leaned back and sat into the loop, pulling with all her might. The bags slid across the loft floor to the edge, and with another tug, they dropped.

And Jenny flew into the air like she’d been shot out of a cannon. The rope around her bottom bit hard and hauled her up into the air. The bags hit with a thump, and she jerked to a stop, halfway between the floor and the peak, more than fifteen feet off the ground.

“Oh dear.” She wriggled and the rope shifted upward. Squeaking, she froze. “Oh dear.”

Her hands shook on the thick rope. The rough hemp bit into her backside. Her heart pounded in her ears, and her breath came in hard little gasps. She turned her head, looking for anything she might grab onto and pull herself to safety, but she was in the center of the barn, too far from either loft, too far from the pulley overhead, and certainly too far from the floor. Well and truly stuck.

How humiliating. And she’d been doing so well, too. If word of this got out … heat bloomed in her cheeks. She’d just have to find a way to get down without anyone knowing, that’s what.

She kicked her feet, pumping like a little girl on a swing, shifting her weight. Perhaps she could swing far enough to get a toehold on something … the bags on the floor below moved a couple of inches and sucked all her momentum away. She dangled like a worm on a hook.

Jenny pressed her cheek against the raspy rope as her legs tingled and went numb.

One of the horses in the corral whinnied, and a giggle followed.

Amanda … in the corral with Copper and the foal. Hope blossomed.

If she could get Amanda’s attention, perhaps she could run for Cassie, who would help and wouldn’t tell a soul about this little predicament. Jenny opened her mouth to call for her daughter.

“Hi, Mr. Carl. Mama’s inside.” Amanda’s piping voice drifted up from outside.

Oh no. No. No. No. Anybody but him
.

Boots thudded in the dirt, and as she dangled in a slow circle, she looked over her shoulder and down at the doorway.

“Jenny?” Carl called. “Are you here?”

Maybe she could just stay silent and he’d go away.

Please, go away. Please
.

So of course he walked right in.

“What in the world?”

Her heart sank. But he wasn’t speaking to her. He was looking at the grain bags, and he bent and reached for the knot.

“Don’t!”

His hand jerked back, and he whirled to stare up. “What are you doing up there?”

“I’m enjoying the view. What does it look like I’m doing?” Her embarrassment made her tart.

“It looks like you’re stuck, that’s what it looks like.” His big hands went to his hips, and his mouth split into a broad grin. “This might take some thinking over. I might need to call some folks in for their opinions …”

She closed her eyes, but the gentle sway of the rope unnerved her, and they popped open again. “Very funny. Just get me down from here. It’s most uncomfortable.”

Chuckling, he loosened the knot on the bags, taking the tension and lowering her slowly. When she was a few feet from the ground, he reached up and grasped her around the waist with one arm, then let the rope go. She slid slowly down his broad chest until they were eye to eye, nose to nose … lip to lip.